Thursday, February 08, 2007

When is Motznik Going To Resign?

It wasn’t that long ago, perhaps immediately following the last presidential election, but Pittsburgh City Council member Jim Motznik was a panel guest on the Ann Devlin-version of NightTalk, and promised to resign from public office to work on Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign, should she run for President.

Now I like Mr. Motznik personally. I’m still perplexed as to why he sprinted away from a Channel 4 cameraman a few years ago after being posed a rather pedestrian political question. He’s always been polite and friendly in the neighborhood, flush with folksy tête-à-tête, a sewer-boot wearing Paul Harvey if you will, albeit with only a third of a vulgarity. He’s a Renaissance man for the new age.

I remember the statement about giving up his day job for the betterment of our country as vividly as yesterday and thought it peculiar even then. Why would he have make such a declaration, even though it was the Ann Devlin version of NightTalk, which promised to deliver upwards of a dozen viewers at any given time, including me for at least one minute on any given evening.

I was always amazed that the show perpetually seemed to be in rerun. We’re not talking about the “good” NightTalk with John McIntyre, an above-it-all elitist with a fairly sublime sense of humor and quick wit, but the tumbleweed installment. Ms. Devlin appeared to have the cushiest post in all of local television, and yet the show would go for weeks upon weeks without new editions. It was kind of like “Lost” with decades between new installments…but I digress.

Anyhoo, as we all know, Mrs. Clinton appeared in a web-based video to “chat” about her run for presidency, a campaign everyone knew started the minute she and the former president smashed their last collector’s plate on the way out the door of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In the video, the Senator from New York via Arkansas and Illinois looked as comfortable as an Iranian hostage in 1979, emboldened by the muscular Jimmy Carter administration. Like some of those 63 diplomats and three U.S. citizens who were shown on tape, Mrs. Clinton exuded confident, assured that the “take no prisoners” Carter domination would soon kick down the door for freedom. Her titular “Smartest Woman in the World” gimmick would assuredly surpass even those steel-enforced days of Carter supremacy, where money flowed through the streets much like the omnipresent oil and coal mining jobs.

With that type of euphoria right around the corner (despite Carter and the first President Clinton’s salad days, minority home ownership is only now at its highest levels ever), it’s imperative that we only draft our best and brightest to assure another eight years of intern-groping and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason menopause humor.

We need Barbara Streisand to be relevant again…wait, she was never relevant outside of Broadway and Tinseltown (and yes, I am referring to the David Dukes/Kristy Swanson vehicle from 1997)…but I continue to digress.

We as a country need to assure an upswing in collective virtues and values first started by the highly-successful Governor Tony Soprano/Rendell, where taxes are nearly non-existent and competence—from the Lieutenant Governor position on down to the guy who sweeps up after the High Holy Priest’s daily cheesesteak—is once again on par with those heady Carter administration days where peanuts were as precious as the Peso.

When will Mr. Motznik hand in his two-week notice and help prepare the world for Marilyn vos Savant’s more impressively intellectual sister?